


boys don't wear makeup

by meltedicecream



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Gen, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Makeup, Pansexual Character, Slurs, Soft Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 17:59:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18970192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meltedicecream/pseuds/meltedicecream
Summary: "Boys don't wear makeup." He says finally, like it's some sort of fact. Klaus blows a raspberry.





	boys don't wear makeup

It's always during their free time that Klaus finds it so essential to bother Five, barging into his room with such a presence, and leaving in a peripheral glimpse of fluffy tulle skirt and mom's cherry red heels, only when Five has finally convinced him to do so. It's a headache, to put it lightly, and Five wishes with every fiber of his being that their father hadn't removed the locks on all their bedroom doors. Maybe then he could do his algebra in peace, without his brother wandering in and leaving trails of loose glitter around his desk.

Father says Klaus is a queer, and Five doesn't really know what that means, but he mindlessly agrees.

"Five!" Klaus calls as if it's a song, and Five is painfully aware that it's one he sings far too frequently. The door swings open, and Five glances up from his schoolwork to catch an eyeful of gaudy beads and- oh, today it's Allison's red party dress, and Klaus has painted his nails a bright, blinding pink. Father will spank him at least twenty times, Five thinks.

"I'm busy." He quips almost immediately, and Klaus pouts, his lips pursed outward and cheeks puffed slightly. 

"You're no fun." He replies, like he does every single day, because Five is always busy, and apparently busy equals boring.

"I'm fun in my own way." He tilts his chin upward in a holier-than-thou gesture, because of course he does. Father tells him he has the best progress out of all his siblings, and it goes to his head, because he's twelve years old and there's nowhere else for it to go.

"Math isn't fun no matter what you do to it." Klaus states, his lips curling in distaste. Five thinks he must be referring to how mom had turned fractions into a game for him. Skip counting into songs. The tactics made Five want to throw up in his mouth for how babyish they were; he was surprised that father even allowed it.

"Go bother Ben." He says finally, turning back to his sheet of problems.

"But I wanna bother you."

At this, Five has had enough, and Klaus has frayed his nerves far too many times, coming to him day after day for no particular reason. Where does this desire to bother him come from? All of his other siblings view him with nothing short of distaste, though he's done that to himself. He likes to make it known that he's better than them, but that seems to have gotten him on an island all by himself.

Klaus keeps breaching his island.

"Leave me alone!" He shouts, banging his fist down on his desk in frustration. Klaus flinches, grabbing a fistful of the beads around his neck, as if it'll do something to protect him. But he doesn't leave.

"Why?" Klaus asks, his voice raising in tangible distress. He couldn't understand. "Luther keeps calling you an a-hole, and Ben says you've got so much pride that it's gonna make your head explode." He paused for a moment, glancing down at his bright pink toenails. "Even Allison says you've got a huge stick up your butt. But I don't think they're right. They're being mean, so I thought I could make it better if I wasn't."

Five goes very, very still. Klaus has always been like this, trying to include everyone, and it's sickeningly pure. He's even tried to include Vanya, though it put him in a place where everyone had acted like he grew a second head. "They're right." He finally says, and it's much quieter than he intends. It doesn't bother him that he's not included, but there's something about the vile words said about him behind his back that sits very wrong in the pit of his stomach.

"No!" Klaus says quickly, and now he's making his way further into the room. He sets a few things on Five's desk that he was holding, though Five doesnt bother to see what they are, not caring much. "You're fun because I know you've been fun before. Remember when we snuck out into the courtyard that one night and you taught me constellations? That was fun." He adds, and by now he's sitting cross legged on the ground, looking up to Five as he speaks. The skirt of his dress- or, rather, Allison's dress- poofs up around him, and Five can imagine it's like sitting on a cushion, or something similar.

"It was." He nods a little, remembering the night clearly. It was a good few years in the past, but he figures that's still how Klaus sees him, despite how much he's changed. Maybe it's a good thing, that someone still thinks he's more than how he presents himself.

"Now, will you do something fun with me now?" Klaus asks, and Five can tell he already has something in mind. He can also tell that he might not like it very much, but Klaus has just softened him, though he doesn't realize it himself, so he's much more likely to go along with whatever it is. He nods silently. Stoically, he thinks, though he looks more like a frightened toddler trying to put on a brave face. Klaus smiles brightly and claps his hands, his excitement tangible in the air. He stands up, snatching the few things he'd put on Five's desk and setting them out in front of himself.

It's makeup.

Mascara, and eyeshadow, and blush, and lipstick, and foundation. There's also a big, poofy brush and a little sponge.

There's something blank, lacking in understanding, that appears in Five's eyes when he looks at his brother, questioning. Klaus just giggles, his eyes bright with innocence that Five thought they'd all lost a very long time ago.

"I wanna do your makeup 'cause I need to practice." He explains, and Five doesn't move. There's nothing in his expression that's positive or negative, there's just simply reluctance, because father won't like this.

"Boys don't wear makeup." He says finally, like it's some sort of fact. Klaus blows a raspberry.

"That's not true. Plenty of boys wear makeup. It's fun and pretty." He replies, opening the palette of eyeshadow and scanning the colors, then looking back up to Five, probably gauging what would look best on him. Five then remembers what father had said, and decides to use it.

"I'm not a queer." He says, and Klaus freezes, looking up. His expression is shocked, and there's betrayal in it, paired with sadness. Five feels his heart drop; what did he do wrong?

"That's a bad word." Klaus murmurs, closing up the eyeshadow and setting it down. He begins to gather up the makeup, as if he's preparing to leave. There's disappointment evident in his posture, and Five is quick to backpedal.

"No, it's not." He says quickly, "Dad said it."

Klaus tightens up, his knuckles going white around the tube of mascara. He's silent for a decent amount of time, and this unnerves Five, simply because Klaus is never quiet. "When..?" He asks, and it's quiet; so, so quiet, and Five swears he can almost hear fear in it. Like he knows father had said it about him.

"Uh.. A few days ago. At training. I told him you came into my room wearing a pink skirt." Five explains very hesitantly, because Klaus is already upset and he knows just through context that this will do the opposite of help.

And he's right. He sees Klaus's bottom lip begin to wobble, and his brother scrubs at his eyes furiously, trying to fend off the incoming emotion. He holds the makeup against his chest like it's his heart, and Five feels something inside of himself break.

"I'm sorry, Klaus." He manages, and he slips off his desk chair and sits on the floor in front of his brother. "You can do my makeup." He offers, and at this point he doesn't really know what he's saying; he just wants Klaus to stop crying. To feel better.

Five thinks it works, because Klaus perks up pretty much immediately, spreading the items out in front of him again. It makes Five wonder how much of his happiness is really a carefully crafted facade.

"Okay, the foundation isn't your shade, but you've got nice skin anyway, so we'll forget about it." He says, setting the bottle of flesh colored liquid aside. Five quirks an eyebrow, wondering what he's really just agreed to. Klaus mutters to himself for a few moments before once again opening up the eyeshadow. He rubs his finger into one of the little colored rectangles- a baby blue shade- and brings it up to Five's face. "Close your eyes, dummy." He says, and Five complies, though he huffs at the rudeness of the statement. 

Then, Klaus begins. He starts with the blue up under Five's eyebrow, and Five cracks one eye open to see him getting pink onto a different finger, putting it directly onto the middle of his eyelid. Five can't say it's a pleasant sensation, but it's not unbearable. He's just not very fond of someone rubbing their fingers over his eyelids.

"Okay, this is tricky, and I'm not very good, so sorry if I poke your eye out." Klaus says, and this startles Five a little. He watches, slight worry in his gaze as his brother opens up a black tube that has an odd looking brush at the end. "Raise your eyebrows and, uhm.. Look down." He orders, and Five once again complies, though he isn't sure why. He isn't sure why he's doing any of this, really, but somehow it is sort of.. fun. Just like Klaus had said it would be.

The mascara is a bit of a fiasco, and by the end of it Five's eyes are watering and he has multiple black smudges that are anywhere but his lashes, though Klaus dubs it as 'a look' and moves on. He picks up a stick of blush and pulls it open, beginning to apply all too much onto Five's cheeks.

"What are you doing?" Five asks, his voice naturally irritated, as Klaus begins to rub the blush into Five's cheeks a bit too vigorously.

"Blending." He answers, like it's obvious, and Five is just thankful that he finishes quickly. "Okay, last thing. Pout for me." He orders, twisting up a tube of bright red lipstick. Five stares blankly at him.

"What?"

"Pout! You know, like-" Klaus purses his lips outward, like he does when Ben calls him annoying, and Five knits his brows together.

"I'm not doing that." He protests, and his brother lets out a dramatic groan.

"You have to! Or I can't finish." He whines, and Five rolls his eyes with a long, drawn out sigh. He supposes he'd rather finish this sooner than later.

"Fine." He says, and he pouts, lips all puffed out in a way that he hasn't done since he was about four. Klaus grins and begins to smear the red pigment onto Five's lips, concentration evident in his tense brows.

After a moment, he sits back on his heels and finally exclaims, "Done!"

Five, as if he's been waiting and waiting for that notion (which he has), is on his feet in less than a second. No, he is not excited to see what he looks like in pretty colored pigments smeared all over his face. He's just simply curious at how good of his job his brother has done.   
He goes up to the mirror that hangs crooked on his wall, and his breath catches at the sight of himself.

It's awful. But he loves it.

A grin stretches the length of his lips, ear to ear, and he doesn't even try to supress. He looks like an absolute disaster, but he looks like a fun disaster, and he sees Klaus loitering behind him with a proud expression plastered on his face.

"I like it." Five says finally, and Klaus jumps excitedly like he had been waiting for him to say that.

"I knew you would! I've gotten a lot better, because I used to be really, really bad with eyeshadow 'cause the brush was hard to use, but then I decided to use my fingers 'cause it works better, and I think I blended yours really good!" He rambles, and Five just stands there, smile not dropping from his face.

Maybe he ought to let Klaus in his room more often.


End file.
